Condoleezza Rice En Route to Islamabad, Pakistan

SECRETARY RICE:
Okay, we're on our way to Pakistan followed by, as you know
but cannot report, a trip to Afghanistan and then on to the
G-8 ministerial in Moscow. I'll have some bilateral
discussions also in Moscow with my Russian counterpart and
a couple of other people. I'm not going to go into any
detail here. I'll just take your questions. So who's got
the first question?

Anne.

QUESTION: On Pakistan. The
Musharraf government says it's doing all it can to go after
the Taliban in the tribal region, in the border region, but
Afghanistan disputes this. And what's your view? Do you
think -- I mean, do you take Musharraf at his word that they
really are doing all that they can? And if so, what does the
Afghan Government not see?

SECRETARY RICE: I think the
Pakistanis are clearly working really, really hard to try
to fight this war on terror and I think that includes work
on the Afghan-Pakistani border, which has long been
essentially an ungoverned region of that part of the world.
Obviously, we are all trying to accelerate and extend our
efforts. I know that our military people have had
discussions with the Pakistanis about what more can be
done. The Pakistanis also have a plan that they've been
talking about for economic reconstruction and political
processes in that region because this is, after all a
counterterrorism/ counterinsurgency problem and it can't
just be defeated militarily.

I understand the Afghans --
seeing, as they have, an uptick in Taliban activity -- are
concerned about trying to seal off that border and make it
less an area in which -- from which cross-border raids can
take place. But I think that's very much also the concern
and the desire of President Musharraf. We have encouraged
Afghanistan and Pakistan to work together on this issue, to
work trilaterally with us on this issue, and I will have
discussions with President Musharraf, also with President
Karzai, about how we can jointly take on what's a very
difficult and somewhat stubborn problem there.

I might
just note, though, that the Taliban also, of course, is
engaging in that southern region and tends to be taking
pretty heavy losses.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, if I can
follow up on that. Do you plan to ask the Pakistanis to
allow the coalition troops to cross the border in case of
the possibility of arresting some al-Qaida people?

SECRETARY RICE: I'm not going to get into how operations
might proceed. We have had very good cooperation with
Pakistan on issues of how we fight the war on terrorism. We
have good intelligence cooperation, good military
cooperation and so we're going to continue that. I think the
piece that we need to work harder on is the cooperation
that is U.S.-Afghan-Pakistani in that region. We've had
some good cooperation in some parts of the country. We want
to talk about what more we can do together in the southern
part of the country.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, the
Afghan Government has said that it is considering forming
tribal militias to guard places security forces can't
reach. U.S. policy has been to disarm the militias. Can you
clarify whether you support the return of such irregular
armed forces?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't think anybody
really wants a circumstance in which we walk back from what
has been a very successful DDNR process -- demobilization
and beginnings of a reintegration process. I think that what
President Karzai is talking about is the sense of insecurity
of populations in that region given recent events and I
think the question is then how do we address that given the
forces that are available to us.

Now, NATO forces are
moving into that area. They're not fully deployed yet but
they're moving into that area. There is the potential for
the use of more Afghan forces in that region, police and
army forces. And of course, we have to work the other side
too to try to cut off the flow. So I think there are many
ways to go about this. We're going to listen. I know that
General Abizaid and General Eikenberry are listening to
President Karzai, obviously. He's the President of the
country. He has ideas about how this might be solved.

But
when I've talked to him, he's always talked about trying to
do things in the context of moving toward regular police
and army forces because he is the one who initiated, after
all, the demobilization of militias and I don't think he
wants to take a step backwards. He's really talking about
how they deal with this situation in the south and I think
he wants to do it -- he said to me -- in the context of
their security force buildup.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary,
I just wanted to know if you could elaborate a little bit on
the reasoning for this part of the trip, what it is that
you're hoping to do; but secondly, what your assessment is
of the Taliban actions over the last several weeks and
whether we are actually seeing a return of the Taliban in
some notable way.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let's remember
first of all where we started, and we started with the
Taliban in power. I don't think that's what we're talking
about. We're talking about the continued activity of some
forces associated with the Taliban brand who are trying to
essentially wreak havoc on the populations of the south,
without really a political base, a political plan, without
an effort to -- certainly with no plans to make life better
for Pakistan -- for Afghan people or to reconstruct the
country. We're talking about people who just want to, a
large extent, kill innocent people. That's what we're
talking about.

And so when you talk about the resurgence
of the Taliban, has there been more activity, military
activity? Certainly. Are we talking about the resurgence of
the Taliban as a political movement? I think not. And it's
extremely important to make that distinction because what
you have now is a government in -- an elected government in
Afghanistan, an elected president, an elected parliament
that has -- and governors throughout the country that have
an incentive to have a stable and unified Afghanistan.

Now, there are parts of the country -- and that's been
the reason for the PRTs, it's been the reason for trying to
do more to construct road networks to connect the country,
the parts of the country. There are parts of the country
where central authority has for the entire history of
Afghanistan been weak, and so extending that authority is
important but -- and of course, the Taliban is trying to
probe and push militarily in those areas.

But I really
think you have to make a distinction. We're not talking the
resurgence of the Taliban as a political force. We're
talking about them as a force that is trying to be
destructive in a somewhat vulnerable part of the country.

But we have NATO forces. We have American
counterterrorism forces. The Afghans have police forces.
The Afghans have an army. They now have means and
instruments by which to fight back and they are indeed
fighting back. And I think the Taliban is learning that
whatever weaknesses they thought there might be in that
region, particularly perhaps as NATO forces moved in or in
the transition to NATO forces, they're taking pretty heavy
losses for their trouble.

QUESTION: Just one quick
follow-up on all this on President Karzai. There have been
reports that a lot of people are perhaps displeased or not
very happy with his leadership in the country, outside the
country. Are you 100 percent behind him? Is the United
States backing him?

And also if you quickly can comment
on the situation in Gaza and Israel because it's very
serious at the moment. Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: I
think, the President thinks, the American Administration
believes this is an extraordinary leader. Afghanistan is
fortunate to have President Karzai at its helm. We who want
to see a democratic ally in the war on terrorism are
extremely fortunate that Hamid Karzai is the President of
Afghanistan.

Is it hard? Yeah, it's really hard. But this
is somebody who has taken his country from civil war and
virtually total destruction in four years to an honorable
position in the international community, to an international
compact in which the international community is supporting
his government, to an election of a parliament and his own
election as president, who has appointed governors in parts
of this country that are now working hard on issues like
counternarcotics. This is an extraordinary leader and we're
going to back him and back him fully. And when he has
problems, we're going to sit with him and we're going to
find ways to resolve those problems. But any implication
that anybody thinks that he is somehow not up to the job or
not living up to his responsibilities is simply false. This
is a man who is doing an extremely difficult job well.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, the Gaza. Yeah, a difficult situation.
First of all, there is international -- concerted
international effort to get the release of the Israeli
soldier. Secondly, this kind of tunneling activity that led
to this obviously has to stop. And we are working with and
asking the Palestinians to do what they can with their
security forces, those that belong to Mahmoud Abbas.

I
think that Hamas, if in fact this was a Hamas operation,
which some have claimed that it was, they are demonstrating
that they're not getting the message about what is expected
of a group that has now gone into governance and this is not
behavior that is tolerable in the international system.

But yes, we're very concerned about it. I've spoken
several times with Israeli officials. I've also spoken to
President Abbas. There really needs to be an effort now to
try and calm the situation, not to let the situation
escalate and to give diplomacy a chance to work to try to
get this release.

But in the larger picture there also
has to be, as President Abbas has tried to do, a coming to
terms of the Palestinians with the responsibilities that
they have to live up to obligations that have been taken on
by Palestinians over the last decade to recognize the state
of Israel and commit to a peaceful resolution on the way to
a two-state solution.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) which Israeli
officials (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RICE: I've spoken
several time with Tzipi Livni, with the Foreign Minister.
And our Ambassador has spoken to others. And then I spoke
with President Abbas yesterday.

QUESTION: Madame
Secretary, do you expect -- the Bush Administration has made
the push for democracy a big tenet. Do you expect that to
come up in your conversations with President Musharraf?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. In fact, I'm quite certain that
we'll have a discussion of the road to democracy and the
road to the 2007 elections. Look, President Musharraf
himself, when he was with President Bush, raised the
question. He said, you know, that people are interested in
and he is interested in this democratic process.

He laid
out several years ago the idea of enlightened moderation and
Pakistan as a moderate force in the Muslim world. That's
quite a big step from where Pakistan had been at the time
of September 11th. A part of that process has to be the
increasing and continuing democratization of Pakistan and
so, yes, we will have those discussions. I've always had
them when I've been there and would expect to have them
again.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, you said you were
going to consult on what more the U.S. could do with
Afghanistan in the south, and yet this very tenuous moment
is when the U.S. is pulling out most of its troops from the
south and handing it. Why not reevaluate that decision?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm tempted to say, you
know, I haven't been there in a while and it's important. I
mean, it's an important part of the world. I think that now
that they're past the presidential and parliamentary
elections and we really are trying to help with two parts
of this.

First of all, in the south President Karzai has
had some concerns about reconstruction in the south,
reconstruction efforts in the south, and perhaps doing
something to accelerate the connection of the south to the
rest of the country through road networks and the like. I
think it's a good time to go about and talk about some of
that.

We're preparing the '08 budget. I'd like to
actually -- believe it or not, we're already beginning to
prepare the '08 budget. I'd like to have a discussion with
our team out there about how they see Afghanistan in the
next phases of reconstruction.

I do think it is an
important time also to talk about what more can be done
between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States to try
and deal with this activity, this Taliban activity. But let
me remind that even though it has been somewhat more
intense, it's not unknown that you have more activity from
Taliban when the spring comes and it's just been more
intense this year and so I think we need to get a handle on
that.

But as to your first question, NATO forces are
moving into the south. We are confident that those forces
are fully equipped and capable of dealing with the security
situation in the south. The United States retained
counterterrorism forces in the region, and by the way we
are members of NATO, and the generals are constantly making
an assessment of what force structure and what force
composition is needed in that region.

But I think that if
you look at what is actually happening as NATO forces are
moving there, NATO forces are, when they are engaging the
Taliban, being very successful in doing that. And so there
has not been a drop-off in capability in moving into that
region. This was clearly and thoroughly thought through
before the decision was made to move NATO forces into the
south and I think it's working. When they're fully deployed
and when we have an assessment also of what additional
Afghan forces may be needed there, I think you'll see that
we have the composition that we need to deal with the
situation there.

But remember that American
counterterrorism forces in the region -- remember, the
United States has still more than 70,000 forces in the
country and the capability at any time on the basis of
conditions, the commanders can ask for whatever force
structure they need. They believe the force structure they
needed to have NATO forces move into the south, a slight
reduction in American forces but it's really from this
point on pretty slight, and then counterterrorism forces in
the region.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I think the
question about President Karzai was not so much how we
support him, but is he on kind of increasingly shaky ground
with others there and do we need to show some kind of --
some extra support there?

SECRETARY RICE: You know, I
read this article and it's a very interesting thing when
"unnamed European and Western diplomats" -- what does that
mean? Who are they? So yeah, for whom do they speak? At
what level do they speak? I have not heard this from my
counterparts. Steve Hadley doesn't hear this from his
counterparts. The President doesn't hear this from his
counterparts.

And so I would question, you know, unnamed
people who wish to authoritatively speak about something
that I think they are -- let's just say with which I don't
agree and with which the U.S. Government does not agree. And
I've had no sense that this is true for our coalition
partners either. Everybody understands that President
Karzai has an extremely difficult job. Everybody
understands that he now, by the way, has a parliament, he
now has opposition. There are people who will challenge his
leadership and the job that he is doing because that is, let
me remind you, in democracies what people do.

And so we
have a somewhat different situation now in Afghanistan where
with the emergence of free press, emergence of a democratic
opposition, there are people who are going to question and
ask questions about what the state of security is, what's
the state of reconstruction. And there's going to be
criticism.

But I can tell you that those of us who work
with him every day, and that includes many of our coalition
partners, I have heard it said time and time again we are
really lucky to have President Karzai and we will help him
work through his problems.

QUESTION: Are you
disappointed that President Musharraf has not fulfilled his
pledge to give up his army uniform?

SECRETARY RICE:
Again, President Musharraf himself raised this issue, all
right? And so this is something that we can obviously
discuss. The important point is there has to be, that the
world expects there to be, democratic, free and fair
elections in Pakistan in 2007. In that context, all these
issues I think will be decided and addressed. But the main
thing right now is to remember that they are committed to
democratic elections. It's also to remember that this
country, Pakistan, has come an enormously long way in a
period of four years. Enormously long way. And we are
fortunate there too that you have a leadership that is
committed to putting Pakistan on a course toward moderation
rather than a course toward extremism.

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